Sunday, October 01, 2017

Q: Think of a 4-letter food. Move each letter one space later in the alphabet — so A would become B, B would become C, etc. Insert a U somewhere inside the result. You'll name a 5-letter food. What foods are these?

To make a long story short, I woke up to raindrops in the night. Later, when my alarm went off, I tried working on this in my sleepy state for about 15 minutes and then fell back asleep. Good thing I wasn't trying to get up for a final.

Edit: In Final Fantasy XV, during the "Raindrops in the Night" hunt, you fight a JUMBO FLAN. Perhaps a little too much of a clue and something searchable, but I went for it anyway.

156 comments:

Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via a chain of thought, or an internet search) before the deadline of Thursday at 3pm ET. If you know the answer, click the link and submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.

You may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.

It's FOOD & DRINK. Apples are food, cider & Calvados are drink, potatoes (fermented) are food, Vodka is drink. Both food and drink can be more or less nourishing. Oranges are food, orange juice is a drink, etc. So fermented bread and yeast may be food, but beer is a drink.

A couple of years ago I designed a facility for a company that makes packaged food for people with dysphagia. Since they cannot swallow, they take meals with a straw, just like Heywood Floyd on the way to the space station.

Though couldn't that be explained by the straw forming a fairly tight seal with its opening, and a somewhat stiff packaging material wanting to return to its original shape? The vacuum created by removing the foodrink would need to be replaced by air, pushing the food back down the straw.

I think you're right, he was flying to Clavius. I was only 7 when I saw that movie....

Whether the straw was completely cleared would depend on the elasticity of the encasing material and how much it would return to its original shape, whether there were any air gaps around the straw's opening, as well as how much Dr Floyd had consumed. One could experiment with juice boxes.

I like it, not what I was thinking. This puzzle might be a bit rough, written for both men and women. It has rocked the fashion of a nation.... I'll just say, "Hooked on Phonics" doesn't work for everyone! :D

I don't mean to carp, but darn, having fasted for the holy season at its greatest height, I can say that dear garbled "W" gives part of the battle; but you must ponder to find more bombs for your barren and fallow carts. Or golf.

Changing the first letter to a W changes the pronunciation of a subsequent vowel in every word? (In the case of picked/wicked, the E sound is changed to 'short' from 'none', thereby adding another syllable.)

That's really fun, eco! ALthough, having taken years of French, I'd have to object to 'lieu' being pronounced as you intend....it's really a fast 'lee' followed by ..geez, I don't know how to spell it....an open 'ugh/er' sound.

The reference to Buck's handling of horses referred to the series of columns advertising a Buchhandlung service that Myles na gCopaleen ran in The Irish Times 75 or so years ago. Myles was the alias for Flann O'Brien, which was the pen name for Brian O'Nolan (or Brian Ó Nualláin if you insist). So that's my coded reference to Flan.

I know that this is all ridiculously obscure, but let me put in a plug for the great Flann O'Brien and for the columns he wrote as Myles. The ones on his book handling service provided to rich people too stupid to read the books in their libraries (and the companion ventriloquist service for those too stupid to carry on an intelligent conversation in public) are priceless; go invest in a copy of The Best of Myles and thank me later.

I am proud to say I have solved this week's puzzle a few short hours from my nephew's funeral this afternoon(see previous post). I guess it just took having other more important things on my mind to clear my head about this.

Yes, similar logic to last week’s. I figured with that clue the second word was “teacher” (duh), which gave me “her,” the analog of “his,” and then just filling in the last part of the first word. This puzzle was similar for me.

I hate to address the elephant in the room but, so sad for the people killed or injured in Las Vegas. I don't have any answers but still in shock that it happened. It will be very interesting to learn the facts.

Natasha:Those of us who manage to read your posts prior to you deleting them cannot understand why you keep deleting what is interesting in favor of what is not. Please have more confidence in your writings.

SDB: I spelled Martha Stewart's name incorrectly. I was going to correct it but had to delete it and did not save a copy to paste and correct. All I said was I did not believe the second word was even a food when I found the first one. I said I would need to watch more Martha Stewart cooking shows, I guess. Did not mean to play games etc. Glad to read your thoughts, though. Thanks.

Natasha:Stew Art; Stuart, or Stewart, who really cares? My suggestion would be either to copy and past again and then make the change with your correction and then delete the former post, or simply post beneath the name correction. People really want to read what you post, and you frequently post interesting remarks, only to quickly delete them. You do yourself no favor by doing this.

I don't understand why the news media can't seem to get the story straight. When Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said "Trump is a f**king moron," it was not in any way a disparaging remark. He was simply standing up for the President and correcting the person who had said "Trump was a f**king idiot."

Yes, and if all the idiots and morons in this country got together and formed a political lobby, it would be larger than all the other lobbies plus Congress put together, and don't forget Trump and his delightful phamily.

When I first heard this I had a bad feeling about what he said. Listening to the White House press conference a little while ago, I thought of two things.One, Trump is pulling his usual ruse of getting the press worked up about a news byte to deflect attention from something more pressing. In this case it could be either about Tillerson, Puerto Rico, Korea, Iran or maybe even the Robert Mueller investigation.Two, the White House press conferences remind me of the old Wendy's commercial from long ago. These news conferences give you no choices, or information.

You may be right, it could be deflection, or it could be another instance of his lack of self control and seemingly unlimited need for attention. CNN wrote about how he treats this as a reality show. His actions today do not inspire confidence.

This is "fine" when it's about something inconsequential, like his advisors or press secretary or health care or the economy. But no doubt the folks in Iran, North Korea, Russia, etc. are trying to discern and react to his mad lib remarks. And I worry mostly that Kim will do something equally impetuous, like launching a missile or exploding a nuke in the ocean.

Like that 10-11 year old boy, it seems like he can't restrain himself from blurting out some secret information that he has.

I suspect he knew the Russians had hacked Hillary's emails, and it was no coincidence that he "asked" for that at a debate. Same thing, in May, with his revealing top secret info about the Israeli spy placed in ISIS.

He simply has to "show off" that he's a "superior". And so it makes me wonder if there is a real storm brewing. Fine if it's internal, like the extinction of Rex T., but otherwise....

Now that I think about it I am wondering why I didn't hint: Janet Flanner. I ran into her in the cocktail lounge in the Hotel Continental in Paris in 1965. She was living at the hotel at the time. Ernest Hemingway had already died by then.

In this week of Nobel Prize announcements I'm waiting for my call from the Nobel Committee for my important "Theory on Dessertology (Dessertification?). This Theory postulates that Switzerland is the dessert nexus of the universe, and the quality of desserts lessens the farther a country is from Switzerland. For example, all the countries adjoining Switzerland - France, Italy, Austria, Germany - have fantastic desserts. But as you move to the next ring - Spain, England, former Yugoslavia, Greece, Scandinavia, Czech Republic, etc - the dessert quality diminishes. Don't even think about Russia. One could argue that Belgium should be in the top tier, but we know about Belgians.

Switzerland as the nexus doesn't necessarily mean that Switzerland itself has great desserts, just as there is a calm in the eye of a storm. But the Swiss do have some awesome chocolates, Nestle not withstanding.

Quick aside: Swiss Miss is actually from Wisconsin, and is a Conagra brand. Explains a lot.

Next week's challenge: Next week's challenge comes from listener Chris Stuart of Las Cruces, N.M. Take the name of a country. Insert an E somewhere inside it. You'll get a phrase that answers the question: What did Henry Ford do?

BTW, my wife also submitted a puzzle suggestion that Will used in 2000, which coincidently included Flan as part of the answer. Even though I’ve been selected twice to play on the air, neither my wife nor I have been able to get a second puzzle suggestion accepted. But we keep trying…